Hi all In addition to Collin's point on methodology: it's never really clear what is the norm in question against which ICANN's internal policies and practices are evaluated. We seem to have a mix of US federal statutes, international law strictly speaking, "secondary"/softer international law like ILO recommendations, and then other stuff of unknown origin. Another issue: international human rights law generally is not the most precise kind of thing. One may have a right to a safe working environment in some treaty somewhere, but there is actual lawyering work required to assert that such a vague statement actually prescribes a concrete norm applicable to a concrete situation. I have found little or no such argumentation. It's mostly conclusory, jumping from vague/ill-defined "human rights" (no textual references of any sort; at best a mention of ILO.) to concrete rights or duties. One example: ICANN has "well-managed and standardized procurement practices, guidelines and trainings." That says very little about what IRH law has to say about procurement, and the extent by which ICANN abides by those rules. Another one: s.2.4: "Sick leave, as well as maternity and paternity leave, are provided according to national law". Sure. I hope it is! What is national law here? US federal or California law? Or other law for regional offices? Is there IHR law on maternity and paternity leave? What does it say? How does what it says translate into concrete norms? In general, and in the US? If so, are such norms applicable to a US entity? And indeed that is not even touching the fact that what is being discussed here is ICANN's compliance with the whole universe of human rights, not only those which are actually applicable to ICANN, a private entity in the US. I get the idea of doing what they do, I'd just prefer to have things stated clearly and separated, between compliance which "would be a good thing" because IHR law talks about it and compliance which is mandated by actual law (and there is little "actual law" in the US when it comes to international human rights) As for the GDPR, the report seems to imply that ICANN is bent on applying the GDPR throughout. Is that the case? Meaning, is ICANN seeking to "apply" the GDPR as if it were a EU-based entity? Fully and thoroughly? Even in all its transactions and relations that have absolutely nothing to do with the EU? (think US-based employees). Maybe I just missed something, but I felt that the whole GDPR discussion was limited to WHOIS. A nice weekend to all, On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 2:18 PM Collin Kurre <collin@article19.org> wrote:
Dear colleagues,
ICANN Org has published the Human Rights Impact Assessment carried out on its operations. Find the announcement and link to the report here: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2019-05-15-en
I personally find the formatting of the report to be rather confusing. At first read, I would have liked to see additional focus on the methodology and substance of the assessment itself. An explanation about how impacts were measured and prioritized would have been good, along with additional details about the "Impact Assessment Frameworks" developed for each of the four assessment areas (Human Resources, Event Planning, Procurement, and Security Operations).
Please share any additional thoughts or questions you may have and I will relay them to ICANN Staff and Löning, the assessment practitioner.
On a related note, for those of you who missed the CCWP-HR call yesterday, new guidance has been produced about how to complete our PDP Human Rights Impact Assessment tool. [0] It can be found attached to this email as a PDF, or in the second tab of the Sub Pros trial HRIA: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EKpMCef8kiZ2tJE2AU78q9_oeJehGbR7bWpQ...
As always, feel free to leave comments or make any updates or modifications as you see fit. Akriti and I are working on the final report of this first trial run, and will be in touch shortly about the next assessments. Let us know if you'd like to get involved in this work — particularly if you're already engaging in PDPs!
Kind regards, Collin
[0] Find a retrospective of past HRIA iterations here: https://community.icann.org/display/gnsononcomstake/Meeting+Notes?preview=/5...
-- Collin Kurre Digital Program Officer ARTICLE 19
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